Minimizing staircase errors in the orthogonal layered manufacturing system

The factors that generally affect the slicing error in layered manufacturing (LM) processes are first analyzed, and issues pertaining to the current methods to deal with the slicing error are discussed in this paper. A method based on a recently developed and implemented orthogonal LM system to reduce the overall slicing error is presented. In this method, the flat region is separated from the stereolithography (STL) model and different processing methods are applied to the different areas in the part geometry. In addition, the mathematical model for calculating the slicing error is derived and an approach based on a genetic algorithm has been developed to optimize the build orientation in terms of minimizing the slicing error. Case studies are given to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the method. Note to Practitioner-The staircase effect has been the major concern for industry to widely adopt rapid prototyping technologies. It will not only worsen the surface quality but also create errors on the parts built. This paper introduces a novel approach to minimizing staircase errors based on a multidirectional deposition approach. A mathematical method combined with a generic algorithm is used to minimize the slicing errors. From the case study given, the approach has been proven to be effective in minimizing staircase errors and thus improving the rapid prototyping (RP) built part quality.     

Lack of TEL/AML1 fusion in pediatric AML: further evidence for lineage specificity of TEL/AML1

The percutaneous cardiopulmonary support system (PCPS) was used in a 64-year-old woman with cardiogenic shock due to sustained ventricular fibrillation (Vf) caused by severe aortic stenosis and regurgitation. The Vf attack was resistant to cardioversion and adrenaline for lack of left ventricular support by PCPS. She was transported to the operation theater with PCPS in situ and emergency aortic valve replacement was performed. Although preoperative cardiac resuscitation time was long (35 minutes), she was discharged from the hospital on foot without any neurological complications on 84th postoperative day. Because PCPS does not decrease left ventricular systolic stress in poorly contracting dilated heart, early surgical treatment is needed in patients with severely damaged heart.     

Contribution of phospholipase C-beta3 phosphorylation to the rapid attenuation of opioid-activated phosphoinositide response

Our objective was: (1) to determine the appropriate dose of new ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide particles for magnetic resonance angiography (MRA). This agent comprised of a single iron oxide crystal stabilized with a carbohydrate-polyethylene glycol coat (PEG-Ferron/NC 100150 injection); (2) to determine the proper flip angle for PEG-Ferron-enhanced 3 D time-of-flight (TOF) MRA sequence; and (3) to compare the enhancement of peripheral vessels following PEG-Ferron and GdDTPA-BMA. MRA parameters were: TR/TE = 50/2.1 ms, NEX = 1, FOV = 30 x 30 x 1.8 cm, and matrix = 256 x 128 x 64. In anesthetized beagle dogs (n = 10), the effects of PEG-Ferron and GdDTPA-BMA on regional signal were monitored for 45 min and compared. The lowest dose of PEG-Ferron (0.05 mmol/kg) produced the best enhancement of primary, secondary and tertiary vessels. The flip angle 60 degrees provided better enhancement than 20 degrees on contrast enhanced images. Unlike GdDTPA-BMA, PEG-Ferron allowed prolonged delineation (> 45 min) of the pelvis and lower extremities circulation. PEG-Ferron provided greater Contrast-to-noise ratio CNR (80.2 +/- 6.2, P < 0.05) than GdDTPA-BMA (63.5 +/- 2.5). It may be possible for blood pool contrast-enhanced 3 D TOF MRA to provide valuable information for visualization of vascular tree including guiding interventions.     

On the possible role of brain protein synthesis in functional barbiturate tolerance

Pentobarbital pellet implantation increased more than 200% the ED50 dose of pentobarbital required to induce loss of the righting reflex within 2 min of i.p. injection and increased the onset of barbital-induced sleep. Both tests of functional barbiturate tolerance were blocked by the intraventricular injection of cycloheximide. The effects of acute (45 mg/kg i.p.) and chronic (pellet implantation) pentobarbital treatment on the incorporation of 3/-lysine into the protein of various subcellular fractions of the cortex and subcortex were studied. In the subcortex, chronic pentobarbital treatment significantly stimulated protein synthesis 40-50% in the microsomal, soluble and mitochondrial fractions. Both acute and chronic pentobarbital treatments significantly increased (3H-lys)-protein accumulation in a fraction of synaptic plasma membranes derived from a population of nerve ending particles (NEP) enriched in gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). The possible significance of these data to pentobarbital tolerance and dependence development is discussed.     

Shielding Theory of Coaxial Cylindrical Structures

A theory on the shielding effectiveness of n coaxial metallic tubings which shield a coaxial cable has been developed based on electromagnetic (EM) field theory. The theory holds for all homogeneous, linear, and isotropic shields, magnetic or nonmagnetic, and covers essentially the entire frequency range. When a cable carries an evenly distributed axial current, the dominant mode of propagation is transverse magnetic (TM) and has only three field components, i.e., Ez, H?, and Er. The fields of the dominant mode leaking from the cable, with and without shields, have been determined rigorously from the solutions of Maxwell's equations and boundary conditions. The shielding effectiveness of the tubings, defined as the insertion loss, has thus been readily obtained. To simplify the obtained expressions to a certain degree such that numerical calculations are manageable, various approximations have been introduced and precisely justified. The limitations imposed on the simplified expression due to the approximations have been clearly listed. It has been shown that Schelkunoff's shielding theory is merely a special case of the present work. As an example, the shielding effectiveness of a single copper tubing surrounding an RG-8/U cable has been considered. The data measured from a carefully designed experimental setup show that at high frequencies, i.e., above 10 kHz, the curve predicted by the present work is about 1 dB above the empirical curve, while the curve due to Schelkunoff is about 5 dB below the empirical curve. At low frequencies, i.e.     

A Subsequence Matching Algorithm that Supports Normalization Transform in Time-Series Databases

In this paper, an algorithm is proposed for subsequence matching that supports normalization transform in time-series databases. Normalization transform enables finding sequences with similar fluctuation patterns even though they are not close to each other before the normalization transform. Simple application of existing subsequence matching algorithms to support normalization transform is not feasible since the algorithms do not have information for normalization transform of subsequences of arbitrary lengths. Application of the existing whole matching algorithm supporting normalization transform to the subsequence matching is feasible, but requires an index for every possible length of the query sequence causing serious overhead on both storage space and update time. The proposed algorithm generates indexes only for a small number of different lengths of query sequences. For subsequence matching it selects the most appropriate index among them. Better search performance can be obtained by using more indexes. In this paper, the approach is called index interpolation. It is formally proved that the proposed algorithm does not cause false dismissal. The search performance can be traded off with storage space by adjusting the number of indexes. For performance evaluation, a series of experiments is conducted using the indexes for only five different lengths out of lengths 256512 of the query sequence. The results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the sequential scan by up to 2.4 times on the average when the selectivity of the query is 10^–2 and up to 14.6 times when it is 10^–5. Since the proposed algorithm performs better with smaller selectivities, it is suitable for practical situations, where the queries with smaller selectivities are much more frequent.     

Injection molding of 316L stainless steel microstructures

Micro powder injection molding (PIM) is a promising process for low cost fabrication of three-dimensional microstructures. The PIM can be used for a wide range of metal and ceramic materials, combined with the potential for mass production. In this paper, initial study on the molding of 316L stainless steel microstructures was investigated. Three different micro-cavity shapes were used. Small powder with mean size of 4 m was used with two multi-component binder systems. Microstructures with dimension as small as 35 m could be injection molded. For successful molding, the binder system must provide high green strength to withstand ejection from the mold and suitable molding parameters used. For example, a high mold temperature is required and ejection speed must be reduced. The cross-sections of the microstructures are precisely replicated. The general shape in the depth direction is replicated although it is not as good as that for the cross-section. More work has to be conducted to realize the full potentials of the process.The authors would like to thank the Nanyang Technological University for awarding a research grant to conduct this research and Adeka Fine Chemicals (Tokyo) for the supply of PAN 250 binder.     

Evolutionary design and implementation of a hard disk drive servo control system

The ever increasing demand for higher storage capacity and smaller magnetic hard disk drives have driven the need of developing a high performance head positioning servo control system. To meet the challenge, this paper presents the design and real-time implementation of a robust two-degree-of-freedom servo system for physical 3.5-in. hard disk drive with single voice-coil-motor actuator using a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm toolbox. Besides the simplicity in controller structure, such an evolutionary servo control system is capable of meeting various performance specifications of hard disk drives in both the time and frequency domains. It is shown that the servo system optimally moves the magnetic head onto the desired track with minimal control effort, and keeps it on the track robustly against plant uncertainties or runout disturbances. Validation results of the evolutionary servo control system are compared with classical PID and RPT controllers, which show excellent closed-loop response and robustness in the face of practical perturbations in HDD.     

Transient Modeling and Analysis of Pulse-Width Modulated Z-Source Inverter

The newly proposed Z-Source inverter has been proven in the literature to exhibit both steady-state voltage buck and boost capabilities using a unique LC impedance network coupled between the power source and converter circuit. This paper now presents transient modeling and analysis of a voltage-type Z-source inverter. These aspects are found to be challenging and they need to be carefully investigated before attempting to design advanced control algorithms for controlling the Z-source inverter. Through detailed analysis, the paper identifies several phenomena on the dc and ac-sides of the inverter, which would result in the inverter having a non-minimum-phase transient response. The dc-side phenomenon is associated with the Z-source impedance network, which is shown through small-signal and signal-flow-graph analyses to be having a right-half-plane zero in its control-to-output transfer function. Also, the ac-side phenomenon is shown through space vector analysis to depend on the time intervals of inverter states used for reconstructing the desired inverter output voltage. Based on the ac vectorial analysis, a method for improving the inverter transient response is also presented. Last, simulation results obtained using a switching-functional model and experimental results obtained using a laboratory prototype are presented for validating the described theoretical concepts     

Tensile-Strained Germanium CMOS Integration on Silicon

Monolithic integration of tensile-strained Si/ Germanium (Ge)-channel n-MOS and tensile-strained Ge p-MOS with ultrathin (equivalent oxide thickness ~14 Aring) HfO₂ gate dielectric and TaN gate stack on Si substrate is demonstrated. Defect-free Ge layer (279 nm) grown by ultrahigh vacuum chemical-vapor deposition is achieved using a two-step Ge-growth technique coupled with compliant Si/SiGe buffer layers. The epi-Ge layer experiences tensile strain of up to ~0.67% and exhibits a peak hole mobility of 250 cm²/V ldr s which is 100% higher than the universal Si hole mobility. The gate leakage current is two orders of magnitude lower compared to the reported results on Ge bulk.